On Monday evening, a new CNN poll put his job approval rating at 38 percent. Just as worryingly from the White House’s perspective, the same survey showed his “strong approval” among Republicans sliding to 59 percent, from 73 percent in February.

Note, the poll is evaluating Republican support dropped from 73% to 59% when Sanders’ supporters protesting Clinton’s nomination crossed the aisle, and Clinton isn’t liked much outside the Beltway requiring a candidate they hated more for Clinton to carry more than 19 of 50 Nation-States’ popular votes to win the 270 EC votes for winning the Presidency.

The memo continues

There are obvious reasons why Trump’s standing may have declined even among those previously supportive of him.

The failure of the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, signals the breach of a promise that Republican candidates had made since the law’s inception in 2010.

Additionally, the deepening probe into allegations of Russian collusion with Trump’s presidential campaign could be taking a toll.

Republican lawmakers have become increasingly willing to distance themselves from Trump on that issue.

They joined Democrats in passing a Russian sanctions bill with an overwhelming majority before leaving town for August.

In addition, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) separately introduced legislation with Democratic colleagues that would make it more difficult for the president to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the probe into Russian matters.

Late last week, Republican firm Firehouse Strategies released a new survey of voters in four battleground states: Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

It found that the share of Republicans who held “strongly favorable” views of the president had fallen from roughly 54 percent to 45 percent since April. The share of Republicans with unfavorable views had also risen significantly, from 20.5 percent to 27.9 percent.

The firm, whose principals include several strategists close to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), interpreted the results to mean “Trump’s base is shrinking. He cannot take continued GOP support for granted in swing states.”

Late last month, a breakdown of state-level Gallup polls also showed an interesting geographical divide in Trump’s support.

His approval ratings were good in some bastions of support, including West Virginia, where he held a large rally last week. They were also adequate in Midwestern states such as Iowa and Ohio.

But in Republican redoubts in the South and Southwest, including Texas, Arizona and Georgia, Trump’s approval ratings were in negative territory — by 9 points in the first two states and 7 points in the third.

(Bold emphasis mine)

The Progressive Republican bastions are South and Southwest that requires encompassing Bush Republicanism and Neocons aka re-imaging to moderate conservatives/compassionate conservatives to social conservative proponents of the Bible Belt (Search Bible Belt States).

Iowa isn’t shown as part of the Bible Belt or Rust Belt, and Ohio is part of the Rust Belt as well as a Swing State meaning Ohio voters tends to swing from Democrat to Republican back and forth.

Trump’s camp reacted fiercely to a weekend report in The New York Times that said a shadow campaign is emerging in case the 45th president doesn’t run. The Times reported Vice President Pence was among those preparing for the possibility, which was strongly denied by the former Indiana governor and White House aides after the story was published.

Naturally, Progressive Republicans simultaneously bank on Pence’s loyalty to the President while attacking demands of Presidential loyalty by Trump. Pence’s PAC formation promoted as Republican 2018 mid-term election cycle motivated exposes the double standard of Progressive Republicans. If one hasn’t noticed, Progressive Republicans are all about imaging not so much anything else.

Here is a look at how the landscape of potential Trump challengers is shaping up, one that could include senators, past presidential rivals and even celebrities.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Thursday he’s not running for president in 2020, but you could be forgiven for wondering if he’ll change his mind.

Another conservative freshman senator, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, is also mentioned by some as a possible Trump opponent.

Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has positioned himself nicely as an ally of the administration with foreign policy credentials and the respect of the base. However, Cotton is only 40 years old and running against Trump could hurt his political future. He’s also up for reelection in 2020.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich was the last GOP challenger to Trump in 2016, not because of his primary success, but because everyone else read the writing on the wall.

Most of Rep. Justin Amash’s attacks against the president come in a venue Trump knows well: Twitter.

The Michigan Republican, a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and one of the nation’s most well-known libertarians, has mocked Trump’s understanding of the Constitution, questioned whether the president’s global investments and projects pose conflicts of interest and signed on to legislation calling for an independent probe into Russian election meddling.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has relished sparring with Trump. Cuban, who has become more recognizable from the hit TV show “Shark Tank,” has liberal social views but has said he is otherwise more in line with Republicans.

Actor and former professional wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is awash in social media buzz and has publicly expressed his interest in running. Johnson is a registered independent but has attended the national conventions for both Democrats and Republicans.

Another wealthy independent, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, will generate speculation until he definitively rules out the possibility of running. The billionaire founder and CEO of the Bloomberg financial services and media company has been both a Republican and a Democrat.

If there is a Trump-sized void, Pence would instantly become the front-runner. Pence, 58, has conservative bona fides and the Trump campaign has essentially never ended, so the vice president continues to bank fundraising and email equity.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has been making moves behind the scenes in preparation for national office. Trump has publicly called on Scott to run against Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) in 2018.

And then there are the 2016 runners-up: Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Paul, as well as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, all have appeal among sections of the GOP primary electorate and could be eager for redemption

Recurring theme:

1). Progressive Republicans made up of Bush Republicanism, Neocons, and Social Conservative proponents are heavily centered on imaging and branding, so they consider Trump’s election simultaneously a result of ‘cult personality’ and ‘Trump-Russia collusion-interference’.

Centrally, this follows that there’s ‘no there there’. It also translates to “Why vote Republican at all?”, but they don’t really think that far ahead or thoroughly.

2). Focuses on elections of local-State election cycles. Such as Ayers connecting to Pence’s PAC also connects to Kasich’s re-election bid in Ohio although Kasich won under the basis enough people supported Kasich as Governor rendering recall efforts prior to his Presidential bid improbable. Kasich ought to thank his lucky stars that his supporters were willing to let bygones be bygones instead of supporting recall efforts after that stunt.

Centrally, what voters vote for in local-state elections don’t always translate to Presidential support, this is what nearly cost Kasich’s final term as Governor.

3). J Bush, Rubio, Kasich, Cruz, and etc wouldn’t have stood a chance against Clinton’s political war machine. J Bush and Cruz wouldn’t have gotten Sander’s supporter’s protest vote, and this right here would have made Clinton’s Presidency effectively guaranteed.

The next issue is Independent Party made up of Democrats and Republicans

That is, 13 independent candidates who feel they don’t fit in the Republican Party in the age of Donald Trump are joining forces with a few registered Democrats, all looking at runs for governor and Senate in 2018. The plan is to create shared infrastructure and funding for a slate of campaigns around the country, in the hopes of making this more than the latest go-nowhere whining about how awful the two-party system is.

The model, they hope: Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, a lifelong Republican who quit the party two months before the 2014 election, picked a Democrat as his lieutenant governor/running mate, and squeaked out a win against the Republican incumbent. Walker recently announced he’s running for reelection, and he says he never looked back at his decision to leave the GOP—and that was before Trump split the party with a working-class message and heretical stances on entitlement programs, trade and basic decorum.

2. Characterizedby,revealing, or approachingdeparturefromestablishedbeliefs or standards.

Back to the article

Being an independent has its advantages, Walker says.

“If a candidate comes up and says, ‘I’m a Republican’ or ‘I’m a Democrat,’ people know within probably 70 percent of where they stand. With an independent, it’s like, ‘OK, tell me about yourself,’” Walker told me during an interview for POLITICO’s Off Message podcast. But, he allows, “those that are running as independent have to work a little harder. We have to be a little bit more creative and figure out how to get it done.”

Terry Hayes, Maine’s state treasurer, who’s already declared she’s running for governor, will be in Philadelphia, getting tips. So will Greg Orman, who fell short in an independent bid against Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts in 2014 and is expected to run for governor next year, as well as Evan McMullin, the former Republican House aide who’s expected to follow his independent run for president last year with a Senate run in Utah against Orrin Hatch.

(Bold emphasis mine)

While they may be hoping the model follows Alaskan Governor Bill Walker, the actions mirror that of the Libertarian Party whose support is rather energetic, but it is spread across the nation resulting in election results largely between 1-3% of the Election results of each of the 50 Nation-State’s popular votes in determining the election outcome.

“They’re committed to running as independents for the reasons of disrupting and changing the political system, not because they’re on the fringe,” Searby says. “When they start to see that there is not only a viable plan—a business plan, a fundraising plan, but also a serious network of people—that’s when you can see the light bulbs go off.”

Another Independent Party who will whine and whine and whine about the Committee for Presidential Debates and the Electoral College is the end result of that model.

The independents are sensitive to becoming spoilers, throwing races without getting into office to make changes—precisely what Dowd thinks might have happened if he’d gotten into the race next year against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, as some wanted him to. “The greatest barrier right now to this is not money, not tactics. The greatest barrier is psychological,” Dowd says. “If you can break that by winning some races, then I think the media starts covering it more.”

Again imaging and branding. The model is parallel to the Libertarian Party model.

Again, lets test that ‘psychological barrier’:
-Does your Party control a State’s City Mayor?
-In that same State your Party control’s a City Mayor, does your Party control the majority of City Council?
-In that same State, does your Party control the majority of County Commissioners?
-In that same State, does your Party control multiple City Mayors, City Councils, and County Commissioners?
-In that same State, does your Party control the majority of State Congress aka State Legislature?
-In that same State, does your Party control the State Governorship?

If not, it’s not a psychological barrier; it’d be a strategy and tactics barrier.

Then, we get into the Democrat’s side at the tail of the article

some offer a confused vision that imagines Bernie Sanders joining with centrists just because he’s an independent, rather than a perhaps more realistic scenario in which a centrist bloc attracts people like Maine’s Angus King and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski to force compromises.

Sanders has decided the moment is right to launch his proposal for the single-payer health insurance system that helped form the backbone of his presidential message. And Democrats who don’t get behind it could find themselves on the wrong side of the most energetic wing of the party — as well as the once and possibly future presidential candidate who serves as its figurehead.

The single-payer concept is increasingly popular in the party — high-profile senators like Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris have expressed some support, and, for the first time, a majority of House Democrats have now signed on to the single-payer bill that Rep. John Conyers has been introducing regularly for more than a decade.

The distrust between Sanders forces and the establishment is increasing the tension. Some Democratic senators privately bristled at the health care rallies that Sanders and others organized across the country in January: They were shocked to be greeted by angry Sanders backers in the crowds who loudly urged them to back a single-payer plan, according to several Democratic senators and aides. There is also longstanding grumbling over his refusal to share his campaign email list with other Democrats and, more recently, over his vote against a new round of sanctions against Russia and Iran.

On the other side of the divide, Sanders allies insist the party seldom acknowledges the role of the senator’s 2016 presidential bid in shaping the party’s new agenda, whether on health care, a $15 minimum wage, or free college. And they express frustration that Democratic gatekeepers are still slow to accept Sanders’ likely front-runner role if he chooses to run for president in 2020.

In the words of one senior aide to Sanders’ campaign, “A special cloud of denial formed over the swamp when polls started coming out showing Bernie was the most popular politician in the country.”